Locked In During Lockdown with Michael A.

This episode features Michael A., a teaching assistant at the University of Kent in England and motivational speaker. Michael was incarcerated at the age of 16 and spent 12 years in the UK prison system and was released in the summer of 2020. In this episode, we speak on how police action can instigate criminal engagement, what it was like to be incarcerated and released during a global pandemic, and how the prison experience incites PTSD.

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Transcript

Micheal A: [00:00:00] Went into my sentence low in this room. This is temporary. You've got a much better life outside. Don't take nothing too seriously. Even though eventually someone's supplement life is inevitable. Things are going to get to me or I'm going to get cool up and whatever. But I think that was my old, I always kept that in mind that you've, you've got more.

Please listen carefully 

Abbie: [00:00:30] to critical conversations. My name is Abby Henson and I'll be the one conversing with our guests. And I also serve as an assistant professor in the school of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona state university. After the killing of George Floyd, my social media blew up.

I kept seeing posts and reposts as stories. All about criminal and social justice issues. However, much of what I was seeing were just flat words that lacked voice and depth and nuance. And so I wanted to create a space where those words could come alive. I wanted to engage in dialogues with people who had actually been impacted by the criminal justice system, whether through their own experience research or.

I felt this was the moment to think critically to examine the complexities of our system in place today, and to figure out how to move forward in a way that allows for equity and true justice. So I started hosting live webinars, both in an attempt to have the audience be active participants either by raising their hand and joining the conversation, or by contributing a question to the chat box and to also build a sense of community and togetherness in a timeline.

So isolated through quarantine, but because of zoom fatigue, and with people starting to slowly move their lives beyond the home, as places open up, I wanted to figure out a way to keep these conversations going away from the screen. So I started this podcast in order to reach a broader audience and keep these issues in your ear.

As you move throughout. And while it can be really overwhelming to think about how to change a massive system, that seems so ingrained in the fabric of our society by participating in these conversations. And yes, you just listening to this podcast is participating. That is where we see true change beginning.

Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining me in this critical conversation with Michael a, I first just wanted to do a check-in with my listeners and to thank you all so much for listening and for participating in these critical conversations. I get the stats on the cities where the podcast is listened to and.

All over the world and I'm just so appreciative. And I also want to have a request that each of you just send this to one person that you think might get something from, it might find it interesting or helpful. I would really appreciate it. In this episode, I speak with Michael AE. Who's associated with the university of Kenton England and is a motivational speaker.

He was incarcerated at the age of 16 and spent 12 years in the UK prison system and was released in the summer of 2020. We speak on how police action can instigate criminal engagement, what it was like to be incarcerated and released during a global pandemic and how the prison system incites PTSD. I hope that you enjoy this episode feeling engaged and please as always continue the conversation.

Once the episode. So let's just first start from the very beginning. So for our listeners, since most of them are based in the U S if you could just give kind of a general overview of what your community looked like when you were growing up. So where were you living? What was the daily activity around you and what got you involved in the gang in the first place?

Micheal A: [00:04:23] Oh, no. Okay. Describe my era to America. I don't know. I feel like it's, it's, it's the same. Ghetto or oven, era or slum or whatever you name it. And, um, it's the same, but it's just the London version. I suppose. There's a lot of council houses as in government houses for people. I would say the majority are parents in the, I come from a single parent.

So me, well, one of. 1 0 4, we have a single parent. I would say 98% of my friends are from single parent backgrounds. So I think that's starting to paint a picture in it. So as a night, yeah, we're from the areas where the. Basically helps help our parents or our parents, parents, you know what I mean? So for me, that, that was one of the reasons initially why I joined outside was because I'll see my mom work and not free food jobs, but I barely ever saw my mom.

And, uh, you know, if she's working three or four jobs, but yet she still needs the government funding and help out. I don't think this is something I can do now. I mean, I can go with both at the same time in, in, in my era growing up, it was those, the fingers get download laid out. As in with you have known to the, cancel them in one way, shape or form or.

You as a victim to them and yeah, I've never been a victim or anyone trying that sort of, it's never sat well with me ever in life. So yeah, I feel like at that naive age, I succumb to the peer pressure. Being part of, one of the neighborhood's guys. And then through doing that, I started to see what I would now call the fake luxuries of being a gang member or a hood guy or whatever, because you see the older guys with money girls, this and that.

But when you start to get older and you see it for what it is. Yeah. It's. It's the dream that you're sold as a kid. It's never way it turns out to be because within that dream, no one tells you gel and death is like, it's basically inevitable unless you buck your idea. So, yeah. 

Abbie: [00:07:04] So how old were you when you joined.

Micheal A: [00:07:08] I say I joined a gang when I was around 11, 12. 

Abbie: [00:07:12] So growing up in the area that you grew up in, what was your relationship like with the police growing up? 

Micheal A: [00:07:23] So I've always grown up knowing that the police one. So for me, one, just as a. Man, boy, my hate for the police grew a lot from a very early stage, because I remember when my first interaction with the police, we, me and my friends, this is way before we started to say we were gang or anything.

And we was in a park. It was like a little, like, I think in America you'd put like a family cookout so that we're in a park and someone's done a barbecue and it's just family and friends. The police have pulled up and obviously there's people dream Kings. We've spoken about. There's nothing bad happening, no violence.

We're not traveling. No. And the police have come and they've come and just handcuffed me and a bunch of my mates saying, oh, there's been an incident up the road. And well, you don't fit the description. And Melissa should do like 11. So I'm thinking like I'm actually scared carbon black. I'm going to get into for what?

Like I literally on the street and luckily enough, my friend, sister, and his mom and other family members with this, so they could challenge them. And I mean, so for me from that day is when I saw okay, like, It's not that I did anything. It's just, they saw my skin color and felt that, you know what, let's stop him.

And then I think since then, I don't know. It's just like, The system knew me now, and I'll be stopped and searched regularly. Now there was a stage I remember at one day I got stuck to slack eight times and I was like, this is a difficult list. And it got to the point where my mum went in to make a complaint about that.

That that's my relationship with the police. They've always been people to me. You just like to inflict more pain where pain doesn't need to be inflicted. I feel I always growing up having those bad interactions with them, eventually it led. I would say to become the gang members that we was, because I remember they would offer us a novella or you don't all gang.

You're always together. You're always together. And I was always thinking, because even on that first day, when I had that occasion where they stopped us in the fall, I remember my friend's sister said. How are you saying that these guys are gang members or whatever, but it was like a group that happened to be a group of like three or four white kids over there.

We'll get as low. And so that's the way you're not stuck in them. And I remember the officer saying, oh, they don't look like a gang. They look dead. That's just a group of friends. So just. How in a split second, has he profiled us to be a gang, but yet those are a group of friends, but, um, yeah, for that psychology from young, both things slowly started to be embedded in my mind to the point where they look with tactics that they use within my child to secure conviction.

And so when the sofa, so when I was growing up, I honestly did not believe outlive to feed the age of 20. But, you know, I mean, so I've dealt with something I'll actually kind of okay with that. You know what I did for the guy, which is 

Abbie: [00:10:44] you, when did you start thinking that way that you wouldn't, that you wouldn't live till 21?

When did you start formulating that idea? 

Micheal A: [00:10:56] I think the first time I prefer going into serious, not going to serious someone that wasn't not a joke. But I love hiking. I love a again and cut a long story short. We done something to someone and that person won whatever retribution. I don't remember. They called me Lakin, like late night Lac kid coming from a party and they've come like, oh, obviously I'm not one to kill.

They probably just the fun of octet to step in. And they, they were shooting at me. Well, I remember it was a late night. It's like three in the morning. The roads are empty. I literally saw my life flash before me called, like, if I die right now, I ain't, nobody has a senior hope me. So 

Abbie: [00:11:48] when you were having that process of, I'm probably not going to live till 21, did that allow you to release fear?

Like, did you feel fear in the time period that you were just kind of rolling with the punches and. 

Micheal A: [00:12:06] I, I don't, if anything, I'm a bit weird as in, when I'm about to get into a situation. I think, I don't know if it's just there for maybe everyone, but part of my adrenaline is I'm a bit scared. I don't know how to explain it, but it just it's just like that.

So yeah. There's been situations where something's about to happen. In my head. I won't, I might be a bit scared, but at the same time, I'm super quiet. I could see what's going on and I'm ready to react. I realized this whole house side, it was, I was actually happy. And this was something that I said to myself, calmly as a youth.

I may not lift the seat actually probably fully. It was cool to a certain extent thinking that people be like, yo, your mama was on there, man.  nah, nah, I don't want to be on the t-shirt. I'm okay. 

Abbie: [00:13:01] So you've been profiled. You've been harassed. You've been inconvenienced to say the least multiple times by the police.

And then you get wrapped up at 16 years old. You were sentenced to essentially second degree murder and you received 12 years at 16. So when you got arrested, how long was it until you were actually convicted? 

Micheal A: [00:13:31] Okay. So we was remanded for a year. 

Abbie: [00:13:35] Okay. And you didn't, you were in jail for that 

Micheal A: [00:13:38] year? Yeah.

Yeah. I was, they were not trying to give us that, that I came up obviously low in the sort of areas we've come from the amount that they put on, they put like 25 grand for our bell, which will Mitch in your, I feel like half my family. At that stage would have had to put up their houses, which they probably couldn't have because they were owned by the government.

So, yeah, it was just a bit of a pickle. So, um, 

Abbie: [00:14:12] so, okay. So you were then in jail for a year. Pretrial. How long did the trial last. 

Micheal A: [00:14:21] Our trout lost three straight months. Like I'm talking, we went to court every day for three months. I survived Colau rice and lasagna, which is the cool food, which they microwave.

That's why I've now got PTSD again. But yeah, that, that, that I remember, literally I lost so much weight. I just can't. I obviously thinking that you've done a year south and Jim I'm very  to then go to Fremont where I literally a public app. Eight to nine hours sleep. When I got to be awake to get ready to go to school because the coat is not just me going Strauss.

There's however many people, because it's a Roman prison that just holds people until your trial time. That could be six year old people going to numerous different courts. They wake you up really early so that everyone could be done at the reception so that they could, so I could be expected to being cool.

4:00 PM. I'll be in that cool by eight foot EAM. And I'm just sitting in the cooler. So for hours hours, the first three weeks was legal. Joggling. Yeah, that, that I didn't even know why they put up. 

Abbie: [00:15:43] Um, so three months of trial, you then receive this at what what's the official. Accessory to murder. What is it?

Micheal A: [00:15:55] W which aisle I would like to rent in the price. Another in this country is actually now in the parents on the basis that it was misused or misinterpreted by police prosecution. They're not allowing people who have been convicted on it to 

Abbie: [00:16:12] appeal, but they haven't made it retroactive. 

Micheal A: [00:16:17] Well, what they're saying is anyone that wants to appeal it, you literally have to come with brand new, fresh evidence.

That's never been heard before, which I'm like. So people who have been appealing for LA EFA, listen, I've been wrongfully convicted. You've now said, okay. Yeah, Israel, but those people who've used Huda resources during those accrue and they call it, use it again. 

Abbie: [00:16:42] Okay. You're 16. Then a year goes by. You get convicted.

Do you end up going to an adult prison or a juvenile prison?

Micheal A: [00:16:54] In 2012, when I just had 21, 

Abbie: [00:16:58] you entered the young offenders after you got convicted. And so when you went in with your mindset, the same in that you thought maybe you would die in prison at 21, or did you, what was your mindset going in? 

Micheal A: [00:17:14] When into my sentence low in this soon, this is temporary. You've got a much better life outside.

Don't take nothing too seriously. Even though eventually as someone stepping up, like in the inevitable things are going to get to me or I'm going to get, pull up and whatever. But I think that was my old, I always kept that in mind that you've, you've got more. To last and just being enhanced. So, yeah.

Plus I'm someone, I really hate people telling me what to do, what I can and can't do. So if an is like, oh yeah, you got to be up by this time, whole purpose. You see that half an hour more because is where you going to do? Send me to prison. I'm worried. 

Abbie: [00:18:00] Is there a solitary confinement in those prisons? 

Micheal A: [00:18:04] My first experience of social security confinement was when I was 16.

Around the first time I went to them, I forgot occasion. And then an officer has tried to approach me on it, but me getting into my gang mode of just straight punch the officer. I'm now fighting officers of color. I'm like, this is for me. And a lot of prisoners over here, you can kind of, you don't have respect for offense already because to me, you're a fellow police officer.

You tried to be policed. You didn't make the cuts to the light, just the prisoners. And on top of that, you are a normal everyday civilian that if you saw me outside, you would most likely clutch a bag a bit closer. You are why we've decided that no, no, no, no, no. It's not for them. Right. And so location was them.

Eventually they outnumbered me, they beat me up pretty bad at that age. And then I remember they put me for six months for six months. Yes. Yeah. That was my first time. Um, they put me there for six months and I don't know. I feel that that could have been, make or break. 

Abbie: [00:19:18] What was your mindset while you were in solitary?

Micheal A: [00:19:22] Um, well, cause it was like the first ever time for me at first, I think for like the first week I just slept too long. I just saw it as a, I was like, you know, I couldn't relax flat. I ain't going to go and see this person or whatever, like yeah. Choose slip to low. And then. That started to get a bit boring, sort of, not afraid to read for me enough.

I read the law and that was when I literally started writing, but I would say I was writing people 10 double-sided page level. That's how bored I was, you know what I mean? And then there'll be other people in solitary confinement. So then we'll probably talk as a window to each other about nonsense for like eight hours, just to kill time.

Abbie: [00:20:11] Who were you? Who were you sending those letters to? 

Micheal A: [00:20:15] It could have been anyone. It could have been friends, family. Yeah, friends or family. Where are you receiving 

Abbie: [00:20:23] letters back? 

Micheal A: [00:20:24] Yeah, I was, I know the only people that ever put in the same effort into how much I wrote with other people in prison. 

Abbie: [00:20:33] At what point did you start taking advantage of the programming and doing inside out and really leaning into education?

Micheal A: [00:20:44] On prison reform courses. That dope shit that Bob miss bullshit in the world. Yeah, because plain and simple, they're made by academics to know nothing about gangs or robbery or anyone who is a criminal in any way, shape or form. You have no knowledge of that background. You've come from a silver spoon fed family background.

Yeah, you're given out saying, well, you should think this. And if you see this before you get angry, this should help you. And so, yeah, they're dope. Shit up. However, you have to do them to progress in your, in your safe, uh, her Majesty's place. So yeah, I did all my courses. Literally, you do those courses and you say, well, they want to have literally, and.

They're going to pause you so that you can progress. 100%. You have to jump through the hoops to make it to the main hoo. For me, none of it works. None of it, not like I said, if it's not built by someone who understands. So certain advice that they tried to say that you, you should be able to use this to call me.

Let's see, let's be honest if I've been on the Bozeman level and doing a bang, you really now think that if I see someone who I see as a concept, 10 competence it's okay. Constant then. No way. Cause he ain't got it depends. I feel like only if you wouldn't do them, trust me. There's a lot of agency, but you just do what you got to do.

Get Fritos seats. Like I said, I've always known that life out here. What my, my change a moment is, like I said nothing to do. I'd say I was like, I would say I was like eight years between six to eight years into the sentence. I know that I'm done. I realized that I'm actually quite. This was around the time I decided to do the inside out program, give my lecturer cover line.

And I don't think it was until I finished that big. No, no, actually, before doing it, I remember my behavior. Like it wasn't good enough for me to jump on the course at the time. And I remember my friend who was part of the previous cohort was that bro, just trust me, you're going to enjoy it. So, but yeah, I eventually got into the course, surprisingly for me, I always felt that university was something beyond my reach.

Just for that. Cause I've never really enjoyed school, but 

Abbie: [00:23:35] even though you were pretty good at it. 

Micheal A: [00:23:38] Yeah. Well, I think for me, it's never school, like sit in a classroom and whereas university, you've got that freedom land. If I'm going to come to that lecture, I'm going to come out. Or I could just watch it lay on my own time on the computer.

Cause usually they're recorded. So being able to experience that made me feel. You know what, maybe let me give this a go. Eventually in that course, I, I believe if I'm correct, I got the highest mark and that was including the students who were actually university students. But even in saying that.

Someone in my last, I've always noticed that people, people judge me by my parents. So wherever your affirmative or your lover gang member, you're just a food person or whoever people see me. And they're their first food is this guy's trouble or this guy has viewed or whatever, or they just think I'm automatically like, just quote gang.

Maybe. I don't know. Maybe it's the way I dress or whatever. I don't know, but we're not. People have always come to me off the like Joe Rola people who we said once I saw two kids, they actually surprised because they don't show that. I don't know. It's actually kind of patching. It's a lot of people from uneducated.

Abbie: [00:24:56] Right, right. They're so surprised after. 

Micheal A: [00:24:59] Yeah. And they're like, oh, vocabularies as well. Um, I'm someone I like to. I like to put myself in the right. No, I like to present myself different in different scenarios. So if I'm with my childhood friends, I'm going to be like, yo dog, if I'm like, you're in Kira and I'll be like, oh, how do you

Yeah. Yeah. You, you, you adapt to the situation 

Abbie: [00:25:37] at hand after you went through the course and Excel, do you add a couple more years left of your sentence? How did you spend that time? 

Micheal A: [00:25:46] I then became eligible for open prison. Me. I'm a very determined person. I always send it to myself. Like once I hit the open conditions, people couldn't be whatever, whatever I will literally bite my tongue.

Like I'm talking to the extent where. Throughout my 12 years in close conditions. I honestly believe I can put my hand on my heart and say, no one can say your life. He got victimized or this guy robbed them or whatever, whatever. However, once I got into open condition, that was literally few incidents where even in one, I got.

To the point where I w I still would not retaliate, like, literally, cause I'm thinking, you know what, Vanessa, it's all 16. If I do retaliate, I'm assuming that I'm not just gonna go and slap you or something. I'm, I'm probably gonna do something. Once I've done it now. And I'm in solitary confinement in a different boat condition of a lab.

Mate, if you just waited the lover, two more seconds to think about this. 

Abbie: [00:26:51] So maybe you did do the 10 breaths before. 

Micheal A: [00:26:55] No, definitely not to impress, but you grow with age, you grow with knowledge. Is this the fingers you said it yourself. Like I'm a, I'm a, I may say a little bit. I say I'm a big money, a lot.

I'm a big man for this. I can't be doing this because I just don't food is right. That if you're doing the same thing that kids do shit. I mean, come on, man. You need to set an example or differentiate. Those kids don't feel that they can pull you up because I've seen a lot of men in prison who your, your like 45, but yeah, you want to kick it with, uh, a 21 year olds.

I love a friend in prison. You should, I don't know how about how it is over there, but in prison over here. If you're not yourself at the end of the day, it will always come up. I'm proud because look, I'm undecided now talking to you about it, reflecting on it. Instead of being in a cell thinking, man, you could have been home two years ago.

What if, what, what I've never want to do? 

Abbie: [00:27:58] So were you in the open conditions when it went into lockdown? 

Micheal A: [00:28:04] Yeah. So in open conditions, I started going out everyday. I was going to the university to work with my lecturer during my teaching assistant role and taking certain lecture or seminar. Um, for me as a person who did 12 years, and now I'm at the stage where I'm coming out day, like, I feel like a billion again.

I have a routine way up. Get the train go. You need what? Go back at the end of the day, same cycle, six days a week. And then look down came. Boom. Literally I felt like my whole sentence started again to not, I mean, like. Yeah, that was really stressful because I feel like I've been punished. Like you've just taken away my freedom again, and I haven't done nothing.

Please take it away. But at the same time, I can't be angry because it's a worldwide thing. I'll definitely say who locked down. That definitely went through. Little spots of the pressure and stress that  was personable, the whole world just lending to low. And I don't know if you look through it, but I would happily say 99% of the world's strokes.

Yes. And that was you being incarcerated in your home, your loving home that you've built, you've put nurturing love into it. You people were losing their own minds on that. So imagine you've been taken from your own home, put into a little cell with the bare minimum bare minimum. We're talking about people that are.

Two minutes without their phones. And I mean, so I always try and put that into context for people that you lot say, oh, that was hard. And that like, imagine that I've been locked down by that

Abbie: [00:30:05] Right. So you got out in what month did you get out August? So it's still a pandemic. How have you, what has life been like? On the outside in terms of getting housing, getting a job, being supported by family and friends. And when you came home, was there any temptation to go back to the gang life or to reunite with those people?

How did you stay strong, stay involved in the university and also gain the social support that you had previously?

Micheal A: [00:30:51] Basically I've come home. So for me, my feeling is they took me for the, this enterprise and I'd like to strongly highlight, trying to mud off when I was 16, I feel like I've just been plucked from society for 12 years and then 12 is done and they just ask you back and be like, yes, you feel good. Right. Th th there, there is no house in, there is no funding.

No, there's literally nothing, but it's bad enough trying to get a job with a criminal record. Like mine. I eat with the murder in it, but, um, come home in, uh, in a pandemic where people who are fully qualified, no criminal record who have lost their jobs now trying to get a job, I'm basically fighting. In acute to get a job.

Again, those people, which let's be realistic and not one I of a, of a charm. I still plus a bad one because for me, I just see it as, yes, I can easily who Joe blogs and say, mate, from me, this will do that. And do that. Uh, for me, I see it as, I didn't do 12 years to come out to do that. I did a go freedom.

Suffering might swear a lot. I'm human. Like, listen, I'll go. I'll go home. I'll just go and live life. Like there's no way I'm not going to come. Just sack of meat and money. To what wear nice clothes to, to look good. And for the people that half of them live in half of them, 90% of them forgot about me when I was inside or you didn't provide me or acknowledge me, but yeah, I'm going to catch up with what to say.

You do have to drive a nice call and post on Instagram. Yo and I just put some myself nine months. I feel like it's too easy for me as well. I feel like I'm just smart and I'm bad. And that. I don't know, it might find a bit found a bit snobby or whatever, but I just feel like, listen, if I this age anyway, if you're not moving major grips, forget, bro.

That is not to say that it's worth it. If you was, it's not worth it in it. It's just not. Plus I'm worth more. I know I'm smarter than that. Uh, people in prison, you know? Yeah. If we applied the same energy that we do to make a attract line or to do whatever activities, to make money, to avoid the police, if we put that same energy into a legit business, into a bench or that route to the market, because our drive is still the same thing at the end of.

Get money, but if you're doing it now without having to look over your back for feds coming, or even a wave of guns, come in to shoot me for your grub or wherever that if we actually did that, that we will kill the ship for that. People just love that fast money and fast money for someone that's had money in the past quick money, the quicker you get the cooker.

So it, because you just feel that this is if I went on the block and I made five grand in like two hours, three hours, but I haven't what I sweated and had to wake up early mean, there's so many fights when you're actually doing a budget work. And you appreciate when you get your pay because you. Whereas yeah.

People would say, yeah, well I'll be trapping hard at work as well, but it's easy money at the end of the base. So you, you wouldn't value it as much. 

Abbie: [00:34:37] Right. Right, right, right. That's a really good point. So now that you're out, let's just say. I mean, it's true too. The world is your oyster. What if you could do anything?

What would you want to do for work for right. If 

Micheal A: [00:34:54] I could do anything, it would have to be something to give back to the youth in a way to just be able to. People that are in prison and myself and the generation that just, just maybe don't help, but just give them the eye-opener that role, this gang thing, bro.

Abbie: [00:35:14] That's what I want to ask. And I think we should end on. If you could go to your 11 year old self, knowing everything, you know, now let's say you see you're the, you're the program leader and your 11 year old self or ten-year-old self enters the program. What would you need to tell your 10 year old self or to provide for your 10 year old self so that he wouldn't go down that path?

Micheal A: [00:35:45] Wow. No one actually ever asked me this question. What would I have said? What would I say? You know, what would I say, knowing what I know now to my level now? So, okay. Education, education. I tell myself to be more confident in education because. A little quote. My mom used to say to me as a kid, when I didn't take school, seriously, she used to be like, listen, you think it's so cool?

And you think the girls you're cool now. Yeah. They lack it now. Yeah. You're the little boy. Trust me. When you get older. And you're like, around my age, the girls have been the light, the good boys who have gotten the jobs because, oh, you're not cool. No more. And you know, kids, and I always used to think, what's this lady talking about, she don't know you ain't rode mama.

It's actually crazy, but I've grown up and I'm like, yo, like it's older guys who wasn't doing five minutes. He wasn't gambling. No that one's driving past and that big pause or so 

Abbie: [00:36:45] you would say, yeah, lean into education and 

Micheal A: [00:36:51] education is your key in anything. If you're well-educated in anything, then you can smash it.

So are just probably not a lot of people. W who normally would swear, he's such a strong guy to stand that, which is right. I, I wouldn't class myself as a softy or whatever at the same time, I feel that people don't it's like people find that hard to believe if I'm going through whatever hardship or whatever.

Basically what I'm saying is fruit been in jail for that long. I formed some sort of PTSD. For me, it can be a food that there's certain foods that if I see that it triggers me that no, it triggers me that I was out shopping the other day. That, this particular biscuits that they serve in prison. And I showed them and it just triggered me and it's like, whatever that's triggered me, I go into a bad, a bad, bad energy, a bad mood, because it's like, I'm reliving this bad feeling, but I'm like, how, why am I reliving this bad for you?

When I'm away from it, I'm out here, but I don't know. I just feel that I should put out there that prisoners, as well as an army vet or whatever can suffer PTSD. 

Abbie: [00:38:16] Absolutely. I think, I think that's, it's interesting that you say that because I just interviewed another man who was previously incarcerated, also got out in August and that was something that he really harped on and.

It's so wild to me that we don't talk, like we think of prison as just like this place you go, and then you come back out and then there are all these issues in terms of like getting housing and employment and all these things. But we don't actually talk about the prison experience and how the prison experience itself impacts people on the outside.

Right? Like we just think of it. It's a place you went and now you're back and like deal with the issues in the community. But that prison experience stays with you. And we can't, how could we ever expect it to not, we know that harm is circuitous, right? We know that harmed people tend to harm people. And so we're inflicting the biggest harm.

On individuals by putting them in prison. But yet those are the people that we expect to desist from harm when they get home. So it doesn't make any sense. If, if our goal of prison is to enhance public safety, then we're doing it. All 

Micheal A: [00:39:30] right. We are, if anything, a lot of people that go to prison, we are from to wherever you're sending them to prison.

It's putting them in a bigger picture because you're not helping them. Um, prison is not meant to be for punished. If you're your punishment is your federal prison is to reform. 

Abbie: [00:39:52] There's so much nuance behind that. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we could talk for

Micheal A: [00:40:01] hours. I'm hoping you invite me through the poetry. 

Abbie: [00:40:04] Absolutely. Yeah, no, I, I really, I really appreciate you speaking and sharing your story and again, it's important and you're appreciated.

Thank you so much for participating in my critical conversation with Michael EY, I was really interested in the company.  about how the relentless and racist profiling by police in part led to Michael and his friends, joining the gang. How, if you tell someone enough times that they are something, they start to believe it and act out in the ways that you would expect.

This demonstrates the importance for teachers program leaders and others of intentionally setting, positive expectations for those typically stigmatized. Right? Also thought it was important for Michael to share what it was like to be in prison during the pandemic. According to the Marshall project from the start of the pandemic through June of 2021, almost 400,000 people in the U S prison system tested positive for the.

And over 2000 incarcerated individuals have died from COVID-19 related illnesses. During the pandemic, most prisons around the world have been on lockdown with individuals only able to leave their cell for one to two hours a day. And in that time, Scrambling to shower, make calls and exercise, or simply just spend time outdoors.

As Michael said, this extended period of compounded confinement and isolation has led to many mental health issues for those inside. Most prisons. Have banned in-person visits and have relied solely on virtual visits through this entire last year, which has been detrimental to maintaining relationships, which are key to a successful re-entry returning home from prison is always difficult, but it's particularly difficult during a panic.

With limited job opportunities and without the ability to have an active and present support system, the pains of re-entry are in addition to the lingering trauma of the carceral experience, as Michael touched on at the very end, he suffers from PTSD triggered by authoritative orders, certain foods, and even certain stuff.

This is a topic that I'll be diving into further in the next episode with Abdullah Lateef, the senior strategic advisor and racial equity specialist at the campaign for the fair sentencing of youth sentenced to life. Without the possibility of parole as a child of Della was re sentence. In 2017 after spending over 30 years in prison, we'll address issues such as fair sentencing, racial reckoning and conditions of confinement and discuss trauma informed solutions.

I hope you'll tune in, expect new episodes every other Monday, and please subscribe, rate and leave a review. It really helps. I really also look forward to reading your feedback. I'm Abby Henson, and this was critical conversation. 

Okay.